Books

Buck Rack Lake

Camp Burlwood, a luxurious retreat on Buck Rack Lake, deep in the Adirondack Mountains, is now open to wealthy vacationers. But Horace Wainsborough, who has sunk his entire savings into the camp, is distraught because a gang of unidentified teenage boys is causing havoc throughout the property. And then one of his first visitors, a board member of the Adirondack Mountain Preservation Society, is kidnapped.

A hidden tunnel. A mysterious wooden chest filled with gold bars. Eleven-year-old Benny Dogsbody and his friends must unlock the secrets that lie beneath the Dogsbody Hardware Store or else Benny’s father will spend the rest of his life in prison for a murder he didn’t commit.

Sixteen-year-old Tom Waters doesn’t want to be a pirate. But after meeting an attractive girl on a pirate-themed cruise ship and agreeing to hold on to an ancient coin for her, he finds himself mysteriously transported to a sloop in the middle of the Caribbean…in 1692. While Tom tries to get back to the twenty-first century, he has to learn how to be a pirate—cutlass battling, cursing, rum drinking, mumblety-peg, and just staying afloat on the high seas—otherwise he might not last a week, much less three hundred years.

Tom encounters pirates like Scar, who knows where he’s headed: “Call it Davey Jones’s locker, call it hell, but I made my choice long ago. I’ve lived two years longer than I expected and enjoyed some mighty fine ladies and rum over that time.” Meanwhile, Jen Goodwin tries to join Tom in the past and help him return to the present day, but a faulty spell book, a clever college professor, and a stubborn gift shop owner all get in her way.

The Accidental Pirate is a twenty-first century coming of age story, but it’s set in the seventeenth century. It’s a tale with romance, but not too much. But most of all it’s a fast moving adventure yarn. Arrgh!

Paul Shepard and Paula Shepardson start work on the same day. And Paul often wonders if the similarity of their names might lead to love, but when he receives an e-mail message intended for her from company executive Leo Hightower, not only do the odds of romance with her go down, but his work life is changed forever. Then Leo is murdered.

Paul Shepard and Paula Shepardson start work on the same day. And Paul often wonders if the similarity of their names might lead to love, but when he receives an e-mail message intended for her from company executive Leo Hightower, not only do the odds of romance with her go down, but his work life is changed forever. Then Leo is murdered.

Paul follows the homicide case as both a suspect and involuntary investigator but still makes time to watch the NCAA Basketball Tournament with his sports-obsessed friend, Jason Rush. Nevertheless, if he is unable to help the police find the killer, he may be spending his last few evenings ever at a sports bar.

Jay Giess comically portrays the vagaries of cubicle life, with its hovering quorums, folders filled with birthday cards, and concerns over a few square inches of work space, while deftly showing how the men and women in an office can come together as a family—or not—in response to a violent death.